Longtime coach's current game is dance

San Clemente High School English teacher and former softball coach Mike Conlon, center, has been the faculty advisor for the San Clemente dance team since 2008. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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San Clemente High School English teacher and former softball coach Mike Conlon, center, has been the faculty advisor for the San Clemente dance team since 2008. Dancers (l-r): Maddie Webb, Lauren Chong, Isabella Bothwell, Elysha Romano and Alexa Romano. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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San Clemente High School English teacher and former softball coach Mike Conlon, center, has been the faculty advisor for the San Clemente dance team since 2008. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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San Clemente High School English teacher and former softball coach Mike Conlon, center, has been the faculty advisor for the San Clemente dance team since 2008. Dancers (clockwise from top left): Lauren Chong, Isabella Bothwell, Alexa Romano, Maddie Webb, Elysha Romano and Emma McGuire. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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San Clemente High School English teacher and former softball coach Mike Conlon, center, has been the faculty advisor for the San Clemente dance team since 2008. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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San Clemente High School English teacher and former softball coach Mike Conlon has been the faculty advisor for the San Clemente dance team since 2008. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Coach Mike Conlon gives a pep talk to his girls softball team at San Clemente High School. COURTESY OF MIKE CONLON

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Mike Conlon coaches the team during a softball game at San Clemente High School. COURTESY OF MIKE CONLON

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Mike Conlon and his daughter Megan Conlon, a San Clemente High School dancer. COURTESY OF MIKE CONLON

My former coaching colleagues were quite amused in 2008 when they heard I had become the faculty adviser for the San Clemente High School dance team. It wasn't in the original plan. Far from it.

When I walked into Principal Dennis Flynn's office in the summer of 1977 to interview for a position teaching English, I found myself sitting next to John Owens, the wrestling coach. He knew I had attended the mecca of college wrestling, the University of Iowa, and noticed my bulky 6-foot, 3-inch frame, and even though I had never wrestled and only played baseball in high school, I soon found myself hired as the assistant varsity wrestling coach and varsity girls softball coach. I even volunteered over the next seven years to announce the home basketball and football games.

Whether it was water polo, cross country, soccer, swimming or volleyball, I loved attending sporting events at our school and seeing my students perform outside the classroom. The highlight was when my own son, Kevin, played four years of basketball at San Clemente, coached by Marc Popovich, whom I had taught and watched play back in the '90s.

It was the arrival of my two daughters that moved me from the playing field to the stage, from the world of competitive sports to performing arts.

When my first daughter, Caitlin, was born, I decided to quit coaching softball after 13 years so I could help out more at home. Caitlin had an ear for music and a beautiful voice, and with early instruction and inspiration from vocal arts teacher Judy Calhoun at Bernice Ayer Middle School, she sang for four years at San Clemente High, the last two with the esteemed Madrigals. The group sang the national anthem at many sporting events.

My wife and I soon found ourselves attending Christmas concerts and fall and spring recitals, listening in awe to high school students singing Baroque rondeaus, Bach fugues and other works in French, German, Latin and even Japanese. However, it wasn't until my younger daughter, Megan, made the San Clemente dance team as an incoming freshman in 2007 that my dual love of sports and arts became complete.

Megan's summer before she entered ninth grade was dominated by required practices with the team, culminating in a two-week, all-day, exhausting “boot camp” in August, the same time the football team was arriving for what we used to call hell week.

I also noticed that the marching band and drill team practiced during the summer, learning tunes in the band room and new routines on the football field, while certain drama students worked on “summer stock” for an August presentation.

Toward the end of the school year, I found myself beneath the school's Triton Center stage – the school cafeteria doubling as the performing arts center – with handyman and dance dad Greg Rys, trying to repair the sags in the 45-year-old stage with reinforced timber before the Spring Dance Concert. I also helped install a $20,000 “sprung floor” – it helps prevent injuries – in the dance room on top of the original cement and thin wood floor.

My last contribution that year was gathering leftover varsity letters from my former coaching colleagues from their banquets. Although an agreement had been reached to recognize students representing the school in performing arts with varsity letters, unlike the athletes, the arts students would have to pay for their own.

The following year, I became the faculty dance team adviser. I worked with the coaches to secure practice time in the gym, since, like many sports teams, the dance team competed on gym floors all over Southern California. When our dance concerts became too big for the cozy confines of the school cafeteria, we were able to book time in the gym for two sold-out concerts. We proudly hung our own banner in the gym, next to those of all the championship sports teams, documenting our own accomplishments representing San Clemente High.

Of course, by 2008, times were changing nationally for dance and fine arts. “American Idol” was soaring in popularity. “Dancing with the Stars” had arrived, and the image of Lauren Froderman, a “So You Think You Can Dance” winner, appeared on the Gatorade label. “Glee” soon became a success, along with other scripted dance, singing and performing shows.

I can remember what made me truly realize how similar the worlds of athletics and arts are. One of the most elegant dancers in our school's history, Alexa Montoya, was walking off the stage after her final senior solo to the tune of “Amazing Grace.” I walked over to congratulate her and was stunned by how heavily she was breathing. It dawned on me that, though she had just leapt and turned for nearly three minutes, all with that brilliant, confident ballet smile, she had fooled me, and the audience, into thinking it was easy. That dance, and her hours, weeks, months and years of practice, was dedicated, inspired and exhausting work. It was sports, with a smile.

I always recognized the effort while coaching and watching sports but sometimes used to miss that point at the school recitals, plays, concerts and exhibitions. Not anymore. I'm glad we continue to value and support the participation of all of our students, whether it be in sports or the arts, as they enhance their own (and our) current and future lives.

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